watched his boy from the windmill at Crecy. Bearded by his Parliament and entangled in the wiles of Alice Perrers, 1377 he went down to the grave a year later than his illustrious son, full of years, but, alas! not full of honThe widows and orphans of Scotland and of France were both well avenged for the misery his wars had left in their cheerless homes.*

ours.

* The institution of the Order of the Garter dates from the reign of Edward III. Having given his garter as a signal in some battle which became a victory (probably Crecy), he fixed on this as a fit badge of the knightly Order, which was established in 1350 to commemorate his great exploits in France. Among the first knights enrolled the Black Prince and Chandos shine conspicuous. This little band of blue velvet, bordered with gold and inscribed with the old French motto, "Honi soit qui mal y pense" (Evil be to him who evil thinks), is one of the highest distinctions our sovereign can confer.

CHAPTER XIV.

WAT TYLER, A MAN OF THE PEOPLE.

Accession of Richard the Second-The poll-tax-Wat Tyler's blow-John Ball-On Blackheath-Rotherhithe-London flooded-Mile End-The four demands-Walworth's scimitar-Character of Richard-A great stain-Dethroned-Præmunire.

R

ICHARD THE SECOND, the son of the Black Prince, ascended the English throne in 1377, on the death of his grandfather. As he was then only in his twelfth year, twelve counsellors, among whom not one of his uncles appeared, were nominated by the prelates and barons to aid the chancellor in the government of the kingdom, until Richard should come of age. The French war smouldered on, bursting often into fierce and sudden attacks on the southern coast of England. It was out of this very war, already forty years old, that the most momentous and suggestive transaction of a comparatively

barren reign grew. The money squandered on French battlefields emptied the treasury of England; and there remained no way of refilling it but the taxation of the people. Out of that taxation came discontent and Wat Tyler.

In order to maintain Calais, Bordeaux, and the other maritime towns of France, which most aptly received from the tax-imposers the name of "the barbicans of England," a poll

"*

The aptness of this name lies in the fact that the barbican was an outwork which stood on the outer edge of the moat, guarding the approach to the drawbridge. If England was the castle and the Channel its moat, these ports were undoubtedly barbicans.

tax was laid on the nation. In the second year, it was graduated from twelve pence for every one over fifteen in the case of the poorest, to twenty shillings in the case of the highest class.

The small amount of the collection led to a rigorous 1380 inspection everywhere as to those who had refused or had neglected to pay. The land became a mass of smouldering discontent. All over western Europe it was a time of revolt on the part of down-trodden peoples against heartless and oppressive rulers. A desire for freedom and impatience of oppression had for many years been steadily growing in the hearts of the English commons. Now came taxation for a seemingly endless war to deepen and to quicken these feelings. The conduct of a rude collector towards the daughter of Wat Tyler at Dartford* fired the train that had been in preparation for centuries. The father, roused to fury by the cries of his wife and daughter, leaped from the roof where he had been working, and with his lathing-staff knocked out the brains of the insolent collector.

A

In Kent, Essex, Sussex, and Bedford-the four counties in which, from their nearness to the capital and to the Continent, the civilization of the people must have advanced furthest—the ferment against the oppression of the nobles and the imposition of the hateful tax had been working with most violence. priest of Kent, named John Ball, who had oftener than once been imprisoned for preaching doctrines not in accordance with the dogmas of the Church, used every Sunday after mass to gather a crowd around him in the market-place of Canterbury, and to inveigh bitterly against the greed of the rich. favourite text was the quaint couplet,—

66

"When Adam delved and Eve span,

Who was then a gentleman?"

His

They," said he, "are clothed in velvets and rich stuffs, orna

* Dartford, a market-town of Kent, on the Darent, fifteen miles from London.

mented with ermine and other furs, while we are forced to wear poor cloth. They have wines, spices, and fine bread, when we have only rye and the refuse of the straw; and if we drink, it must be water. They have handsome houses and manors, when we must brave the wind and rain in our labours in the field; but it is from our labours that they have wherewith to support their pomp. We are called slaves; and if we do not perform our services, we are beaten." So his inflaming speech ran on week by week, until there was needed only some decisive blow to stir fire into flame. The staff of Tyler gave that blow.

Then, from all the counties named, and from others adjoining, a vast mob began to pour in scattered streams toward London, clamouring for speech with the king; but the greater part of them seeking they hardly knew what. Some vague notions of universal equality fermented in their heated minds; but the hope of revenge, and perhaps of plunder, formed their strongest spring of action. By the time that the sticks, rusty swords, axes, and worn-out bows of this sudden army had clustered on Blackheath, its numbers had swelled to nearly one hundred thousand. These men belonged to the lower order of the commons-the class of villeins and hired labourers in the country, and of handicraftsmen in the towns-who, though forming the bulk of the population, had as yet no say in the government. Their leaders assumed the names of their crafts, -Wat the Tyler, Jack the Miller, Jack Straw. Already they had done considerable mischief as they passed along the ways, -a special object of their wrath being the house of any attorney or king's proctor who might unfortunately live within sight of

the road.

Diverse feelings agitated London when the news came in that these hordes lay clamorous and hungry upon Blackheath. A party of more than thirty thousand citizens favoured the rebel movement; but the loyalists, under William Walworth

the mayor, promptly shut the gates, and placed there a strong guard. In order to make their demands known to the king, then living within the strong walls of the Tower, the rebels sent thither Sir John de Newtoun, Constable of Rochester, whom they had pressed into their ranks under menaces of death. By this knight Richard returned for answer that if they would come down to the Thames next day he would hear what they had to say.

Next morning, accordingly, the royal barge brought the king and his suite down to Rotherhithe, a manor of the crown, where ten thousand yells from rough throats greeted his approach. Richard, whose barons would not let him land, rowed out on the stream, and asked the rebels what they had to say. They demanded that he should come ashore. "No!" said Salisbury; "you are not properly dressed, gentlemen." Infuriated by this insult, the mob then began to move toward the gates of London. They destroyed the beautiful suburban villas which studded the banks of the Thames at Southwark and Lambeth, and broke open Newgate, whose prisoners swelled their ranks. Howls of rage broke from them when they were brought to a sudden check by the closed gates of London Bridge. They -swore that unless these flew open they would burn every house in the city. This threat and the expostulations of their friends inside undid the bolts. The hungry files streamed in, spread right and left in search of food and drink, and, when their hunger was appeased, set fire to the splendid palace of the Savoy, occupied by the unpopular Duke of Lancaster. Heated with wine from princely cellars, they swept through the streets, burning houses, killing every Fleming they could find, and bursting into the houses of the Lombard money-changers in search of coin.

By sunset the mob had gathered in a huge concourse before the Tower, where the king could hear their shouts and yells. A conference at Mile End, "a handsome meadow, where in the